Unreported World

Unreported World travels to Israel to reveal how the rapid growth of Jewish 'fundamentalists' is creating tension within Israeli society and endangering any negotiations on a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Reporter Evan Williams and director Alex Nott begin their journey in the Mea Sharim district of Jerusalem. It's the heartland of ultra-Orthodox Jews known as the Haredi, or 'those who fear God'. They find a poor, overcrowded part of the city where everyone is wearing clothes in the style of 18th-century Europe, from where most of their ancestors came. 'We are the real Jews,' says one community leader, 'everyone else in Israel just happens to be born Jewish.'

Many of the Haredi sects were almost wiped out in the Holocaust. But their numbers are growing fast. Haredi are the fastest growing segment of Israeli society, with many families having as many as eight children. 'Every 20 years we have a community that is growing at eight or nine times,' says one of the Haredi men to Williams. 'It means we are growing in size and influence.'

Many Haredi men in Israel don't work as they receive government subsidies to spend their entire lives studying the Torah and religious texts. One Rabbi from the Reform wing of Judaism tells Williams that, because Haredis are exempt from military service and heavily subsidised, they are creating huge tensions within the country.

In an inner-city neighbourhood the team find the Haredi imposing strict segregation of the sexes on public buses. Then they meet one woman who lived in the Haredi community who claims she was beaten up in her own home by a so-called Haredi Modesty Squad after she left her husband.

Across town, the team finds a group of Haredi men protesting outside the home of a government social worker who had a Haredi child taken away from his mother due to claims the mother may have been starving the boy. The Haredi protestors tell the team they don't recognise the state and reject any state interference in their family or community affairs, which they consider sacred.

The team finds that Haredi are increasingly becoming an issue in the conflict with Palestinians due to their need for housing. Two hours north of Jerusalem, at a new development in a part of the country which is 80% Arab Palestinian and 20% Jewish, the team is told by a local peace activist that the Israeli government is building a city for 150,000 Haredi as a way of balancing the Arab population growth in the area. In the West Bank, the team visits another city, where Israeli soldiers are guarding a Haredi construction project despite protests from Palestinians who say it is being built on their farmland.

Williams and Nott return to Jerusalem to find out why the Haredi seem to be able to protect their economic and social privileges. They are told the Haredi are becoming increasingly powerful politically and with about 10% of the seats in the Knesset they now hold the balance of power and are necessary partners for any major party wanting to form a government.

Later the team is caught up in a Palestinian protest fueled by rumours that another separate group of extremists, the religious-nationalists, are trying to occupy the Temple Mount - Judaism's Holiest site - by entering the most prominent Mosque in the city.

As Unreported World discovers, the moderate voices in Israel are increasingly being forced to accommodate growing extremism of all kinds if they are going to approach anything like a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

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Clips from Episode 20

• Vocal Protest

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